Under current practice, paper flight data strips are used by air traffic controllers as a convenient device for maintaining information concerning flights under their control. The pertinent information concerning an aircraft entering or about to enter an air traffic controller's sector of responsibility, typically flight identification, airspeed, altitude, heading, destination, and the like, is received electronically from a central site and supplied to a printer which formats the data and prints it on a paper strip. The paper strip is then manually inserted into a plastic holder designed for this purpose and physically handed to the responsible air traffic controller. FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of such a printed strip, bearing information concerning a particular flight, being inserted into such a strip holder.
Upon receiving a strip, indicating acknowledgment of responsibility for the flight, the air traffic controller inserts it into a rack or bay. Placement of the paper strip in a plastic strip holder facilitates the convenient and orderly addition of the strip to others in the possession of the individual controller.
The placement of the particular strips within the rack, and their movement as the flight progresses, is strictly governed by the personal preferences of each individual air traffic controller.
This freedom of placement to accommodate personal work habits is a desired characteristic of the paper-based flight data strip. The inability to provide the air traffic controllers with the freedom to organize information on the flights for which they have responsibility as they choose is one reason why computer-based data display systems for replacing the paper strips (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,475 to Brown) have been unsuccessful to date.
The information on the flight data strip (such as flight number, altitude, destination, etc.) is periodically consulted by the air traffic controller as the associated aircraft passes through the controlled airspace. Changes to any of the printed information on the flight data strip, e.g. changes in altitude ordered by the controller, are relayed to the pilot either verbally or digitally via radio and written by the controller on the strip using a suitable writing instrument. Transfer of responsibility for the flight from one controller to another is effected by physical transfer of the strip. When the flight leaves the controlled airspace, the strip is removed from the plastic holder and the holder reused.
In the past, numerous attempts have been made to automate the flight data strip function. Most proposals involve capturing the incoming data and displaying it on a computer terminal. The configuration of the data displayed on the screen varied from a simple tabular format to a one-for-one graphical representation of the paper strip itself. None of these solutions found acceptance within the controller community because of the added complexity involved in changing the data and/or physically re-locating strip information on the screen. Nonetheless, improvements in air traffic control continue to be sought; see generally Aviation Week & Space Technology of Feb. 2, 1998, at pp. 42-63, and mentioning flight data strips at p. 55, discussing various perceived problems with the air-traffic control system. In particular, it is desired to allow more data to be provided on flight data strips, and to provide better means for updating information carried thereon, and to provide means for communicating controller-ordered updates to a central control site without loss of the flexibility of use of the present strip system.
The desired characteristics of an automated flight data strip system include providing individual air traffic controllers the freedom to re-arrange strips in any desired configuration to suit either traffic conditions or personal preferences, and the ability to easily modify the contents of the information displayed thereon.